Rooted / پیوستہ

Lahore Biennale Foundation / Government of Punjab / British Council

January – July 2016

Rooted / پیوستہ is a public art project sited within Bagh-e-Jinnah, Lahore and delivered through a unique international collaboration. Building upon strong diasporic links and historical connections between Lahore and Glasgow, Pidgin Perfect worked with Lahori based artists, Unum Babar & Matt Kushan, to create a permanent programme of public artwork for Bagh-e-Jinnah, drawing on shared histories and local heritage to engage the people of Lahore in new and unexpected ways.

Rooted / پیوستہ embedded eight new permanent artworks within the grounds of Bagh-e-Jinnah. The artworks directly referenced the history and heritage of the park through a considered & contemporary exploration of aesthetic and material.

The focus of the project was to critically engage with Bagh-e-Jinnah as a site to devise a conceptual framework for the programme of public artworks and engage a wide variety of stakeholders and contractors to support, fabric and install the suite of significant new artworks; and encourage participation from local people and organisations. This included a programme of schools workshop with Pakistani social enterprise Rabtt, in the process of delivering Rooted / پیوستہ.

Rooted / پیوستہ was publicly launched during a special evening of performance, festival and collective making at Bagh-e-Jinnah that was jointly curated and facilitated by Pidgin Perfect and Unum Babar and Matt Kushan with Olomopolo Media, a theatre company based in Lahore working across community and disciplines.